About the hot spots in Mizumoto Park, we asked the Metropolitan Bureau of Environment and of Construction why the radiation levels at 1 meter off the ground exceeded 1 microsievert/hour. It was the case of mismanagement of the facility. They piled up the sludge from the side drains after cleaning the drains [on to the particular areas], resulting in high radiation.

According to Ms. Ishikawa, it seems the park routinely removes the sludge from the side drains as part of the park maintenance and dump the sludge onto the ground nearby, usually in shrubs and under the trees. The practice is to prevent the parking lot from being flooded in heavy rains from clogged-up side drains.

If that's the case, the Tokyo Metropolitan government has spread the radiation contamination and created new hot spots in the park.

Either it didn't occur to the park facility management that the sludge from the side drains in a park located in the high-radiation area in Tokyo may be highly radioactive after 15 months of concentration of radioactive materials, or it did occur to them but they self-censored and continued their pre-Fukushima routine, as the Tokyo Metropolitan government stance has always been that there is no radioactive contamination in Tokyo to worry about and to do something about.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Construction released the result of their June 25 survey, here. The survey result shows the radiation levels where the park dumped the side drain sludge are between 0.98 and 1.22 microsievert/hour, at 1 meter off the ground. The areas just outside these locations, which are now fenced off, have rather elevated radiation levels, between 0.24 to 0.55 microsievert/hour, also at 1 meter off the ground. The general radiation level in the park is stated in the report at 0.16 microsievert/hour at 1 meter off the ground.

The radioactivity (in becquerels) could be quite high if the radiation level at 1 meter off the ground exceeds 1 microsievert/hour. It is very likely that it will easily exceed the 8,000 becquerels/kg (radioactive cesium) standard set by the Ministry of the Environment for "safe" regular disposal in a landfill. I wonder if they are testing the radioactivity.

5
comments:

Anonymous
said...

Shut up, tokyo has fallout raining on ALL OF IT.Reactors are still going.Tokyo=nuclear waste /PROVEN WITH RANDOM SAMPLING AND LABORATORY TESTING LONG AGO.IF YOU'RE IN JAPAN NOW, YOU'RE GOING TO DIE A TERRIBLE DEATH, DON'T YOU KNOW HOW TERRIBLE THIS STUFF IS? IT IS PURE REFINED UNSTOPPABLE EVIL DEATH.You have had plenty of warning, pull your heads out of your asses /anyone in japan. Leave, let the PRONUKERS WITH ALL THE ANSWERS FIX IT CLEAN IT UP AND LIVE THERE. DO NOT WORK FOR TEPCO. MAKE THE PRONUKES CLEAN UP THEIR GODDAMNED MESS AND SUFFER, THEM! NOT YOU! SMARTEN UP!!!

...or maybe the grounds crews knew exactly what they were doing. As citizens who devote their days to maintaining the park, they probably care greatly for the park also. Maybe THEY wanted the park to be decontaminated also. If so, it's great to see ordinary people finding ways to make the government do what the government should be doing all along. Kudos.

It would be surprising that nor the park maintenance crews nor they managers knew that sludge from drains had a fair chance of being contaminated: TV has been talking about contamination around gutter outlets and on road sides, where a lot of rain flows, since quite some time.

Gross incompetence, dishonesty and corruptions. I foresaw that many of these kinds of trouble would start with contamination spread after 3.11 and this is why I opted to leave Japan entirely (not just going south away from Tokyo). The country is run be selfish idiots that cannot be trusted.

About my coverage of Japan Earthquake of March 11

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